


Helpless

by Peach_Pit



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Anxiety, Comfort, Emotional Manipulation, Feels, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Manipulation, Nightmares, Pain, Physical Abuse, Psychological Torture, Sadism, Self-Doubt, Spoilers, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-22
Updated: 2017-03-22
Packaged: 2018-10-09 03:03:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10402332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Peach_Pit/pseuds/Peach_Pit
Summary: What did Ardyn do to Prompto, and why? Will Ardyn break the poor boy's psyche?





	

**Author's Note:**

> Why did I write this? I love Prompto so much.
> 
> A short thing since I'm on a Suffering Kick. Don't read if you haven't played chapters 11-13.
> 
> Thanks to my friend [Callie](http://saturnvalleycoffee.tumblr.com) for editing. <3
> 
> EDIT 5/3: I want to expand on this a bit, but it may have to wait until after the release of Episode Prompto.

Fingers wrapped in tenebrous shroud reach forward. Flesh digging into sharp gravel, fresh wounds dragging across the ground near the railroad tracks, Prompto tries with all his remaining strength to push away. His other leg is definitely broken; he’s going into shock, yet every fiber of his being conspires to propel him further away from the wild-haired man towering over him.

Futilely.

Ardyn stoops and wraps his fingers around the collar of Prompto’s jacket, lifting the boy up as if he were made of little more than air. “Thank you for playing with me, my dear, sweet child.” Words flowing like dark ichor, streaming into Prompto’s ears, causing him to shudder deeply. The small one convulsed, gripping at Ardyn’s wrist, revolted by the touch of the man who had revealed his treacherous nature, full of malice. Only his shock prevents him from crying; never had he met with such a force that simultaneously set his body to flight but lit his anger so that he desired to end this sinister beast by his own hands.

All his rage means nothing. He can do nothing.

At Ardyn’s mercy, Prompto’s body relaxes. His grip weakens — all strength withering but his eyes, locked firmly in cold fire, refusing to forget the face of the man who manipulated him, who manipulated his friends. “Ah,” comes that voice again, over Prompto’s choking; his grip on the boy’s collar begins to constrict him. “Look at that face. You’ve already given up.” A mien of false pity. “You must hate me. I’m sorry.”

Prompto feels a wave of relief come over his body, almost like that of phoenix down. The cuts on his shoulder close up as flowers close their buds, a harmonious seal; his broken leg resets itself, snaps into place almost painlessly. He even feels lighter as his shoulders release their tension and his chest broadens. Even the blood dripping from his temple disappears, evaporates into the air like pollen dusting into the wind. Ardyn sets him back on the ground. Prompto stumbles back from him.

Confusion lights Prompto’s face.

“Much is yet necessary to make your friend grow,” Ardyn says, spreading his arms to the side.

Prompto backs away from him quickly, keeping his distance still. Unwilling to break his sight of Ardyn, he could not help but flash a glance down the tracks behind him to see if the train is still in sight. It is not.

“He is obviously still not the king you need,” Ardyn continues. “Not the king who helps and protects his friends and country.”

“You’re wrong,” is all Prompto can muster. His heart heaves in his chest, his palms sweating. Ardyn had taken away his physical pain, but his spirit still aches; he has no gun, a bad taste in his mouth, and a worse feeling deep in his gut. He tries to avert his gaze out of disgust. Even the sight of Ardyn from the corner of his eye sets his skin crawling.

Ardyn steps forward.

Prompto steps back.

Hand at his hip, but there’s nothing there.

“Am I?” Arms still spread, Ardyn takes a look around. “Where is he, then? Where is your king — your friend?”

“Why are you doing this to us? Who are you? Leave us alone!”

“You need to learn something.”

Prompto is sure he hasn’t blinked, but Ardyn is beside him. With a yelp, Prompto swings feebly; Ardyn is behind him. Overswinging, Prompto takes a tumble into the rocks. He tries to right himself, crawling up, fingers scuffling across harsh, ashen stone, to hands and feet.

He makes a run for it. All he can do.

Blindsided. Ardyn appears next to him with his gun — his very own gun, the first thing he ever received as part of the Crownsguard — and whips him in the temple, sending him back down, landing harshly elbow-first.

Defenseless. Helpless.

With a harsh _stomp_ , Ardyn pins him with his heavy boots, driving his imprint into the boy’s heart. “Have you realized now? How big of a _liability_ you’ve become?”

“N-no—”

Prompto cries out, grappling with Ardyn’s leg weakly. Gasping for air. Ardyn’s faux pity burned in his blood.

“In the future, when the ‘true king’ lay dead at the foot of my throne, I will leave you to take the credit.”

Removing his foot, he allows the boy to writhe onto his side before giving him a good kick in the back. Prompto turns over onto his stomach, gripping his hands through the rocks and into the dirt beneath, the grit digging in between his fingernails. He tries to crawl away as Ardyn kicks him again, a jolt running through his spine, immobilizing him. Prompto coughs and gasps as the last air he can take in is full of sandy particles. As he struggles to draw in another breath, Ardyn steps closer, grabs him by the hair, and shoves his face into the rocks.

“Why don’t you stop me? You’re so strong, hmm, Crownsguard?” Ardyn lets go with a laugh, taking a few steps back.

Using the last of his arm strength, Prompto turns himself over. Even if Ardyn breaks his spine, he can’t turn his back on evil. Even through tears of pain, eyes filled with dirt, he can make out the man’s complexion, whitening to a pallor, eyes and mouth tinged with something darker than blood. Prompto feels all the warmth drain from him for the first time, utter cold inviting itself in; _This must be it_ , he thinks. _I’m going to die._

He doesn’t even know if he can still warn Noct. His phone had been shattered in his pocket.

Ardyn takes a few steps closer. Choking out breaths from wounded lungs, Prompto witnesses Ardyn’s hand rise behind the blur of tears and eyelashes. Hears the sound of a gun cocking.

Prompto’s body braces.

 _It was all for nothing_ , he realizes.

 _Bang_.

Utterly paralyzed, Prompto, after a moment, cranes his head to his side. Between his hand and torso, there had formed a smoking-wide hole, the force of which had sent tiny shattered rocks into his arm.

It was another minute before he started breathing again.

“You should have seen your face just then,” Ardyn sneers through a laugh. “Truly, there is no hope for your friends. What did I just say? You shall personally witness the demise of your king. What good would it do for me to kill you now?”

Prompto collapses onto his back, feeling the blood course from his head wound. Just for a moment, he can’t think, can’t feel. His body may well have dissolved into the earth. Ardyn had defeated him. How could he even face Noct?

_You’re a wreck. You’re a failure._

_You deserved this._

Prompto thinks that maybe Noctis knew all along.

_You’re a fraud. You’re not even you._

_Prompto Argentum… You’re nobody._

Even now, that inkling of faith — that seed the prince had planted some years ago, not just when they formally met, but before that — speaks to Prompto. _No, that’s not true._

_You’re Prompto Argentum of the Crownsguard._

_You’re Prompto Argentum, best friend of Prince Noctis._

...What did it even mean if he couldn’t protect them now?

...Who would remember him when he died?

He silently wishes for Ardyn not to prolong his suffering. An empty wish.

“Your friends have already forgotten you,” Ardyn declares, drawing Prompto’s attention back out of himself. “But worry not — nonetheless, I will take you someplace where they will be sure to remember.”

Blackout.

❦

Prompto did not know what happened after that.

Battered and abused, he woke with his entire body in shackles. Who knew how much time had passed, other than his wrists, already red with sores; his ribs, gripped raw in the jaws of a device that barely allowed his lungs to move; his back, still aching with the wounds inflicted some time ago.

Yet from the recesses of his mind, emerging with his dawning consciousness like they’d been close to drowning, flashes of memory appeared before him:

someone dragging his right wrist to the access bars by the doors of many long and familiar corridors;

a mysterious figure drawing his blood with a thin needle in a dark room lit only by dark devices;

his body being whisked down more grungy corridors heavy with the scents of blood and magitek to leave him detained.

 _Here_ he is.

The most gods-forsaken place on earth. Empty, but for the distant scuffling and cry of daemons, a deceptively warm humming of machinery, occasional beeping.

So cold, he could have been without blood. Here was the true hell, someplace in the heart of Niflheim.

Here, Ardyn would appear every so often. Who knew exactly when, what schedule; time had ceased, broken down as a construct. Prompto was already so distant from time, removed from space, just short of completely numb. Each time he showed up, Ardyn begged Prompto give in, to starve the seed of Noctis’s faith. Teasing slaps and hateful pinches. Small burns and other attempts to force him to look his way. Prompto did best to say nothing, to keep from screaming, giving the daemon lord no ammunition, saving his energy for when his king arrived. Until the day Ardyn would force it out of him.

 _You can’t die_ , Prompto tells himself. _If you die, Noct will be disappointed when he shows up…_

“Will he, now?”

Prompto hears the cocking of his gun in Ardyn’s hand. Only his heart jumps, but Ardyn can feel it.

“Ah—” Ardyn withdraws his pointing arm just as Prompto looks up. “It’s no fun to shoot a dog while he’s down.”

Releasing Prompto from his restraints, he allows the boy to tumble onto the floor. He heals the boy with a deceptively gentle touch to his shoulder as he’s unable to resist. When finished, as if on cue, Prompto splits, imbued with this temporary energy — for naught, as the door to the cell is locked tight. It does not stop him from trying to escape.

“Come now, at least stand tall,” Ardyn pleads with that slippery silver tongue. “Don’t be so pathetic; it’s unattractive.”

Prompto pulls at the bars of the door loudly and desperately, unheeding of Ardyn, rousing the cries of half-dead daemons in the cells next door. He knows it, that Noct is coming. He can feel it in his aching bones, desperate to close the space between them, however great. He glances back in a panic once, twice — each time, Ardyn aiming higher — ‘til he hears a deafening noise —

_Bang —_

And feels a jolt in his upper back.

❦

Prompto screams himself awake. A jolt back into the present.

Gladiolus and Ignis barely nudge out of their sleep, their fatigue deep-set. After a moment, their gentle snoring continues to emanate evenly from the bed across the break room.

Beside him, Noctis stirs awake, turning to face him. The prince lay eyes on the blond: red, sweating and trembling all over, gripping at his sheets as if to tether himself to reality. Prompto touches his aching head, attempting to breathe deeply to calm himself, failing. Unable to look at Noct, he tries to turn onto his left side to face away. The wound Ardyn had inflicted there still stings.

“Another nightmare?” Noctis lays a hand gently on Prompto’s other shoulder, guiding him to turn back over.

Prompto looks into his friend’s eyes. Dark, sleepless, bagged, ragged — unusual for him. This is the second time tonight.

_See? Still getting in his way._

“Don’t worry about it.” Shaky and breathless. Prompto looks away again. He can’t bear it.

“Am I _not_ supposed to worry about you or something? When did that become a thing?” Spoken more annoyed than the prince intended. Prompto turns back to him, normally pale eyes absorbing the darkness of their corner. Like this, Prompto always looked as though he would cry at any moment, dams ready to overflow. Noctis could never tell if he actually would. “Prompto, I’m here for you.”

Noctis had no idea just what Prompto had been through.

Prompto hadn’t the strength remaining to say.

Nonetheless, the prince drapes an arm across Prompto and returns to sleep. They all desperately need sleep.

Prompto lies in the wake of his king’s strength. That he would offer himself to such _common, low-life garbage_ even with all else he has to bear.

Prompto’s breath begins to flow more evenly, though still shaken by the pounding of his heart. He places his hand on Noctis’s before closing his eyes, a single tear rolling out. Eventually, a dark peace would come to him, a dreamless sleep affording him the energy to push forward with his comrades.

Perhaps there was one dream: to put a bullet in that black daemon’s back.

**Author's Note:**

> send help


End file.
